EU Superlobby: How to (easily) read EU Legislation

You can forget being influential in Brussels without reading legislation. This concerns not only Public Affairs professionals but also journalists and academics. Trying to make sense of it all by reading summaries, articles on Politico or simply the titles of legislation will leave you in the amateur league for ever. The good news is dat reading EU legislation is actually not that difficult and I even find if fun (nerd-alert). With this explainer I hope to give you a head start Brussels survival game. Where possible I will use real live examples. PS - Not sure if you want to read this if you have a legal background....

Nowadays EU legislation comes with a explanatory memorandum. I will skip this. In the explantory memorandum the Commission gives all the info leading up to the law. For brevity reasons (its though enough to get you excited about reading EU legislation). Lets get down and dirty to the law text itself.

An EU law can be a regulation, directive or decision. The first one is binding to the letter, the second one binds member states only to its endgoal, so member states have some room to implement it. Decisions are ussually very specific cases applicable to one case or one member state. The text normally starts with recitals. Recitals Law refer to the "whereas" sentences that precede the main text of a contract. They provide a general idea about the law to its reader such as, what the law is about, who the parties are, what the considerations where for doing this in the first place. Here is an example from the recent daylight savings directive

1. "Whereas a lively public debate is taking place on summer-time arrangements and some Member States have already expressed their preference to discontinue the application of such arrangements."

I know you are burning now with the million dollar question (as I have and many others with me); Are recitals legally binding? There are many discussions on this but let me answer it briefly as a person who is accountable to no-one; No they are not. Recitals can give guidance on the interpretation of the law is the articles themselves are ambiguous. But, but, but, in therms of Public Affairs recitals are interesting because sometimes they are sometimes considered a conciliation prize. If you weren't able to get something in the law amended, you can always try to get in in some form or another in the recitals. And I have referred to recitals when applying for EU funding.

Article 1 is usually the subject matter and the scope of the EU-law. It basically says what the goal is of the law, but also what the scope is. Does it apply to a certain sector? Does it only apply to a certain kind of companies? Like small and medium sizes? While normally the subject matter is phrased in general terms, still lobbying does sometimes take aim at this part of the law. Needles to say that if you are able to change the scope or subject matter the nature of the proposed law changes substantially.

Article 2 are usually the definitions. Alert, alert! Whenever there is a debate about definitions, all alarm bells should go off. There is nothing as political as definitions, while at the same time definitions are often considered in the reals of objectivity. What is a young farmer? What is the definition of a city? While these questions seem rather simple to answer whole turf-wars have been fought in Brussels over these simple questions. Because any definition will include certain parts of society, but also exclude other parts. When allocating EU funding to sparsely populate areas we will need to define what these are. A sparsely populated area in has a different meaning in Romania then in the Netherlands.

Then normally not far after the definitions comes the hart of the legislation. It is the article to watch out for. It is the prize. Its basically the article that defines the raison d'etre of the proposed law. The European Commission will guard this article as much as it can, as changing it will basically mean torpedoing the draft-Law. In the daylight savings directive it's basically the article prohibiting day-light saving practices (oddly enough article 1)

"Member States shall not apply seasonal changes to their standard time or times."

Usually everything after the most important article come the articles explaining the implementation of the law. This can be indicators for succes, or safeguards for stakeholders but also reporting obligations for the member states. While these all might sound very technical you are probably not surprised to know that there is a lot of politics in this as well. For example, obliging member states to take into account minorities when transposing a certain law, already gives minorities political leverage within the framework of this law. Obliging member-states to report every year makes sure the item will remain on the agenda every year.

Finally, the last paragraphs are often used for timing purposes. From what date will the law come into effect? Will there be a transition period? Will the law be evaluated? Is there a horizon-clause? You can bet your socks that this will also part of a heated debate. Often it is also a conciliation prize for losing parties, if you can't stop it you can try to stall the implementation of a law. Or in worst case reopen the whole debate in a near future through a mandatory evaluation.

Milos Labovic is an expert on EU Affairs and Public Affairs

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